by Lucas Thorn
From his position to her left, Lux let out a nasty chuckle. The sound froze the wind and caused more than one raider to wince. He leaned heavily on his staff, presenting a figure more frail than the one he stood before.
At the sound, Nath rounded on the blind deathpriest. Then aimed a puzzled look at Maks. “Why does he hold his staff?”
“He’s blind,” the one-eyed raider said with a shrug. “He kept falling over. Was wasting our time. I thought it’d be quicker-”
“You thought it would be quicker. Easier. And do you think that would please the Lord of Light to hear you say such a thing?” He waved a hand at Lux. “Look at him. What do you see? A blind old man? Weak and compliant? He’s a deathpriest, you fool. Take his staff. If he falls, then let him crawl on his hands and knees! Let him wriggle on his belly like the worm he is.”
Lux only chuckled more loudly as they took his staff. Impish amusement played across the withered and decayed features. Teetering on his feet, he pushed the hood back. Aimed his face toward Nath and cocked his head. “You call your thug a fool, but slaves will always reflect their master.” He took a shuffled step, ignoring the spears thrust at his chest. “I am guessing you have defiled the temple. You have disrupted the natural order of these islands. You have roused the Madman from his slumber and now he comes creeping from the deep. And though draug feast before your walls, you imagine yourself in control. You make plans to flee. Plans to fight. Plans to plan. But you don’t know what to do. Not really. Because you have no understanding of the power you face.”
“We’re not afraid of you,” Nath said evenly. “And we’re not afraid of this Madman of the Crossbones. We are blessed by the Lord of Light.”
“Blessed?” Lux let out a roar of laughter. “Blessed? You are not blessed, heathen. You are forgotten! The Dark Lord knew what haunts these waters. Rule knows what haunts these waters. They both chose to let it lie. To let it sleep. Did you even think to ask yourself why two gods chose to stay as far from this place as they could? Of course you didn’t. Because you are fools. All of you.”
A few of Nath’s raiders shuffled on their feet, looking away when the old man’s scowl turned on them. Ignoring Lux, the old priest aimed his words at his own. “You see why the Dark Lord’s deathpriests are so dangerous now? They wield the tongue of serpents. Their lies can sound like truth to the weak. Who here feels swayed by his words? Who here is afraid to walk the streets of this cursed island? Who here will scuttle into a corner and hide in the shadows like a coward? Any of you? Or are you all truly Accepted in your heart? In your soul? Have you trust in the Lord of Light? Or will you put your faith in devils?” The old man’s face turned its hatred completely onto the deathpriest. “You think you can twist us from our duty. You think you can frighten us. But we are no longer children. We have made the sacrifice and been rewarded beyond anything you can imagine with your rotted mind.”
“Today, I wish I could see.” Lux angled his neck, holding his head in a way only the blind could. Aiming his ears, rather than his eyes. Smiled his cruel smile. “Because I would truly enjoy watching you die.”
“I am taking you to Linkata,” Nath said. Though trembling with anger, he still kept his voice calm. “Then to Jalavnia, where our Lord waits for you. And I wish you could see, too, deathpriest. So you could see the faith in the eyes which stare at you now. So you could see the sneers on their faces as they look at you. Because all here know you are defeated. You are the first deathpriest to be captured in battle, and it is fitting that it is we who caught you. We are his most devoted servants, you see. I can’t tell you how much it means to be the one to drag you to Him. You bring with you the untapped secrets of your kind. Secrets our mages will tear from you. And not only that, but you brought her. The Tainted known as Nysta. There is no greater gift you could have brought with you.”
“You have no idea,” Lux said, still amused. “None at all.”
But Nath had turned back to the elf. His green eyes now bright as his fervour worked inside him like the dark worms worked inside her. “Tonight, we have work. We’ll be returning to where Ihan is hiding. We hurt him before. Maybe killed him. He thought he could hide behind his walls of stone. But what the Tainted can build, the righteous can tear down. Tonight we’ll pull him from his hole and we will nail what’s left of him to the door of his temple. Then we’ll destroy it. All of it To the last stone.”
Lux shook his head. “If you do that, nothing will stop him from coming here. From killing us all.”
“We’ll burn this temple of elemental evil to the ground,” Nath spat. “And then tomorrow, we’ll take the ships. We’ll sail to Linkata. You’ll come with us. In chains.”
The elf swirled her bloodied spit and spat again. “Bullshit. I ain’t playing that game.”
“Crazy bitch,” she heard Maks mutter.
Nath’s gaze was steady.
Hard.
“In the morning, I’m going to take your ears,” he said. “I’ll be using a hot iron to do it. I want you to know, so you can spend the night thinking about it. Pray to the Lord of Light, Tainted. Pray that he gives you a swift death, because you have no chance of being Accepted. No hope of redemption. Your soul will burn forever in the worst pits of Hell.”
He half-turned, and she made her move.
Sprang like a cat, fingers of her right hand curled into a claw. A claw she hoped to wrap around his scrawny neck. Figured maybe she could take him hostage. If not, she’d have the satisfaction of him dying before she did as she tore open his withered throat.
But Maks moved with horrific speed. The large raider hit her like a solid wall, sending her spinning sideways. Her wounded hand slapped to the ground but the broken bones still hadn’t knitted and it couldn’t bear her weight.
She collapsed in the mud. Came up with a savage roar and caught his fist flush against her chin. The blow sent her flying again, stars wheeling in glittering circles across her vision. Taste of iron and copper.
Hand slapped to her hip but found nothing.
Panic riddled her heart with holes and she wobbled to her knees, blood streaming from her mouth.
“Stay down,” Maks said.
She lurched to her feet, blinking through the blazing wash of flickering lights. Something didn’t feel right. Her balance was muddled, as though she was standing on the rolling waves of the sea. “Fuck you.”
Tried again. A zigzag of unsteady steps, eyes rolling in stunned sockets. Mind floating somewhere a few feet above and behind her head. Numb limbs. Broken hand suddenly alive with pain as the worms scattered, struggling to maintain her battered body.
Which took more pain as the one-eyed raider cracked her ribs with a few quick punches before kicking her down onto her back.
She coughed up more blood.
“Don’t kill her,” Nath said. His deliberate tone infuriating her more.
She twisted, angling herself to push to her feet again. But he was on top of her. Wrestled with her arms, then planted another fist against her cheek. A punch which skidded up to expend most of its force into her brow.
“Stay the fuck down,” he snarled.
And, though rage kept trying to work itself loose, it couldn’t escape the blinding dizziness as he hit her. And hit her again.
Lux sighed. “Now’s not the time for stubborn idiocy, Nysta,” he said. “Be patient.”
Maks hit her again.
Then, satisfied she wasn’t going to move for a while, climbed to his feet. Had to press the wound on his leg as he did so. Stared down at her with a puzzled expression. “I thought Jukkala would be tougher,” he said.
“She’s only got one hand,” Jaimes reminded him.
Nysta turned her head, blood drooling from her swollen mouth. “I’m the one who just got beat, feller,” she murmured. “Reckon that means I ain’t the drummer.”
“One hand. Yeah,” the one-eyed raider rubbed his knuckles. “Guess that’s it.”
“Her other hand,” Nath said suddenly. “
Break it.”
“What?”
“Do I really need to say these things twice? Her hand. Break it. Jaimes, you do it. Use your spear.”
She tried to jerk her arm away, but the grinning young man stomped a boot down on her wrist. “Keep steady,” he said. “Or don’t. Lose your fingers. I don’t give a fuck.”
And he brought the spear down, slicing through the flesh and bones of her palm. Then gave it a spiteful twist and bones shattered like glass.
Agony.
It was like electricity. It crackled through her body, whipping at her brain in sharp explosive screams. Screams she didn’t echo.
Her teeth, clenched hard, refused to give them that satisfaction.
Jaimes twisted again, a giggle skirting his rushed breaths. She caught a glimpse of his face, knotted into a mask of sadistic glee as her blood spurting in rushing streams from her hand.
Then Nath was there, the old man with the bright eyes of a fanatic. Bulging from their sockets as violence brought heat to his blood.
“Your blood is filth,” he said. “Filth!”
And he kicked her, boot catching her throat. Kicked her again, the heel cruising across her nose. Something crunched and she couldn’t breathe.
She moaned, refusing to scream though the shrieks battled her throat to be released.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Jaimes crowed. “You kill with your hands. Without them, you’re nothing.”
As the young man jerked the spear free, she closed her eyes.
He was right.
She couldn’t use her hands.
Couldn’t hold a knife.
How could she kill them now?
With her teeth? A bitter self-mocking laugh chuckled wet in the back of her throat.
“Take her to the cells,” Nath said, leaning down to wipe blood from his boot. Wrinkled his nose as he did, trying not to let her blood touch his skin.
Maks waved a few of the raiders forward. “And guard her well. She’s still dangerous.” He licked his lips as they lifted her. “Don’t be fooled by what you just saw. You make one mistake around her, and you’re dead. She’ll kill you.”
The elf hung limp between two of the Grey Jacket raiders. Her consciousness wavered as the pain continued to beat at her. Pain the worms were trying hard to bottle. But they could only do so much.
She felt the darkness moving desperately. Felt also the wave of unconsciousness as it swept from the depths to smuggle her away.
“You already made your mistake, feller,” she whispered through bloodied lips. “Took my hands, but left me armed.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The elf drifted in a sea of black.
Yellow lights danced beneath the surface and putrid hands reached from the gloom, dragging her downward. Chains of seaweed swayed like curtains. A face, torn open, loomed from the depths. Opened its skeletal mouth and howled silently.
Then sank away.
She couldn’t breathe.
Waves churned above, white foam spitting at the sky.
Drowning.
She was drowning.
And the worms, panicked, squirrelled through her body. Found the holes in her hands and ejected. A swarm of black leeches wriggling in the sea in front of her. Squirming through salt water like a school of frenzied fish. They spun into a ball.
Twisted and turned while her lungs burned for air.
Then they shot at her chest. Small mouths snapping for flesh. Her blood was like smoke, billowing outward as they tore her to pieces.
Screaming, the elf woke.
Gasping and choking as she fought for air.
“Nysta,” a small voice croaked. “Nysta?”
The elf writhed as pain stabbed up her arms. And, though it was quickly smothered by the black worms which curled around her nerves and strangled them of feeling, the echoes of it never left her mind. Her breathing skipped and stumbled in the darkness as she used her feet to scramble away from the voice until she was pressed with her back to a wall and had her ruined hands held out in front of her as though they might offer some kind of defence.
Violet eyes still adjusting, her gaze danced inside her skull as her eyes flicked this way and that. As her mind did a mental inventory and found her sheaths lacking. As her memory pushed through the numb fog left by unconsciousness and agony to offer brief glimpses of what had happened.
They’d taken her knives.
All of them.
She was trapped. Defenceless. A feeling she’d rarely felt since Talek had brought her to Veil’s Temple where the Jukkala’Jadean had made their home.
“Shit.” The word slumped from her mouth, carrying with it the weight of her fear.
Nath had mentioned taking her to Rule. Taking her in chains. Had said he was going to cut off her ears. Rage spat at her guts at the thought.
Her eyes stopped rolling in their sockets and she managed to see more clearly. She was in a cell. Dank and streaked with slime down pockmarked stone walls. A salty smell raked through the usual stink such places possessed. Piss and shit. Old blood. Fear made solid in pools of putrid liquid soiling the cracks in the hard stone floor. Rotten food.
Meat.
A shapeless mass pressed against the wall opposite. She had a hard time making it out.
“Nysta?”
This time the voice managed to penetrate and she began to push herself up the wall into a crouch. Unable to use her hands, she curled her arms against her chest. Body still suffering from the beating she’d taken, it was more difficult than it should have been. She stared intently at the ragged heap and saw the spreading stains reaching out from under it.
Blood, mostly.
The voice, weak and crippled by pain, was still familiar.
She shuffled forward on her knees, reeling on thighs which defied her need to be steady. “Saja.”
Dropping down beside the young woman, the elf leaned close. Was unable to reach out and touch her, but didn’t need to. She could sense the agony Saja was holding in as the crumpled form flopped onto her back with a thin cry. The kind of cry which came from someone whose heart had been broken more than their body.
“Nysta. I thought I was dreaming.” Voice slurred. “He said it was you. Maks. When he put you in here. But I thought I’d dreamt that part.”
The elf’s anger glowed inside. Bottled and contained. A firefly searching for a crack in the glass. “Maks did this?”
“Yeah.” She coughed wetly. The elf could make out enough of the girl’s features to see her face had taken more than its share of hits. Her mouth was swollen more than Nysta’s own. One eye socket was caked with crisp layers of dried blood. “Didn’t go easy, though. If you see my father. You tell him. Tell him I didn’t go easy. Went hard. Tell him I killed Boga. Killed him with one hit. Axe. My axe. Axe he made for me. Right in the face.”
“I ain’t good at stories,” the elf said. Searching for something inside she didn’t have much to share. Hope. “Best you tell him yourself.”
“I ain’t making it. Tried to hold on when they threw you in. Hoped you were real. Wanted to tell you, so you could tell him. Please.” Her body shivered with pain. “Something’s broken, Nysta. Inside. I can’t move. Not anymore. It hurts so much.”
The elf ignored the beating of her own agonies to reach out slowly, resting her limp hands on the shattered form. Unable to understand herself why she felt a need to comfort the dying woman.
She’d spent a lot of time near Saja on the Blue Ox. Mostly listening to her and Ainu trade nonsense. And though she was unable to feel the bonds of friendship like most people might feel, she’d acknowledged a tie bound them together in a way she couldn’t put to words.
Perhaps, with the memories of the Jukkala freshly-roused in her mind, she saw in Saja the remnants of those she’d fought beside. Those who’d never made it. Felt more keenly because of their shared battles at sea. Where they’d fought together.
Almost died together.
The closeness which co
mes from saving each other from the pestilential maw of draug had worked its way to instil in the elf a sense of loyalty, if not obligation.
And with those thoughts firm in her mind, she knew there was still nothing she could do.
No healing she could provide. The darkness inside the wreckage of her own body couldn’t help and only served to crush her with guilt. Why should she survive when this young woman with family and friends should die?
It made no sense.
She could feel softness in the Saja’s body where there should have been hard bones and toughened muscle. She’d been beaten to pulp. Tossed inside the cell to die.
Had held on this long out of sheer will. Something the elf admired.
“You said he was crew,” Nysta said. Clenched teeth made her own swollen mouth bleed again. But in that moment, the taste of blood was a comfort. “And there’s shit crew don’t do to each other. Shit like this. You said that.”
“I thought he was one of us. Didn’t really matter what he said before. Not really. But he killed Halvir. Cut him like he was a pig. Said he owed me. Didn’t want to kill me. Some shit like that. Said he wanted to give me a chance. Serve Rule, he said. I knew he’d kill me if I didn’t say yes. I lied to him. Made him believe. We got to the gate, and I couldn’t take it. My body, Nysta. It ain’t for Rule. It’s for the sea. And my soul is for the Shadowed Halls.” Her mouth drooled a thin river of red. Every word was hurting her, the elf knew. Every word was breaking something else loose inside her. And she was running out of things to lose. “They’re traitors. Why didn’t we see it in him? Spent all that time with him, and didn’t see it. Fuck, I was so stupid. I’m sorry. Sorry you got on the Ox. Sorry you’re a part of it.”
As the young woman’s words were peeled from a throat made ragged by screams and pain, the elf found memories peeling away from the hidden walls of her past. That first time in Veil’s broken temple. Left alone while Talek spoke to the Jukkala’s Main Hand.
Alone in a room of quiet priestesses, stubbornly clinging to the teachings of their dead goddess. The women were praying. Their mouths moving to silent words. Words which had no meaning to the young urchin in bloodstained rags.